Home HiFi better than Live?

I've been obsessed with this crazy hobby on and off for almost twenty years now. I've heard some pretty great systems in that time, and currently love my SET/horn system at home that brings the performance right into my living room up close and personal. I also have a good friend who owns an amazing high-end all-Levinson system, as the original poster mentions they do. His system is set up to the nines, and is in a great listening room. I prefer my SET system, but his does have some merits that mine does not (and vice-versa). That said, I have NEVER been able to achieve the kind of adrenaline-driven deep and primal satisfaction, from ANY of those systems that I've heard, that I consistently experience in the best of the live performances I have enjoyed. I absolutely get profound enjoyment from hearing my system singing for me, all by myself and comfortable in my home...and it frequently gives me goosebumps at how real it can sound. But the idea that it can actually replace or improve upon a great live performance in a good venue is utterly ubsurd to me. The experience is entirely different, unless you are dead to the world around you! I mean no offence here, but live music has moved me in ways that are entirely unique to that experience. I've also had horrible experiences listening to live music for a whole variety of reasons (bad performance, bad venue, bad audience, etc.). Those things that are unique to live music cannot be replicated by ANY machine as they are all about life, energy, interaction and electricity (between living beings...performers and audience). Take the music out of the picture just to illustrate a point: Stand alone in a room and you may feel a certain way. Add one person, even without any verbal interaction, and your experience will be entirely different. At a few hundred people and, again, you change the experience entirely. It may start to sound a bit new-age and spiritual, but there is no denying that we are all emitting energy as long as we are alive, and perhaps even to some extent when we are not. Some of that energy can be quantified, and some is entirely invisible and much of it may remain mysterious and unknown. Bring music into the picture now, and actually start to deliberately express and guide the energies of hundreds of indivisuals en masse and you have one very powerful experience (pleasurable or not is up to the individual and circumstances). Remove the crowd, and replace the performer with a machine that only emits one tiny aspect of that energy (the music), and your experience will be ENTIRELY different...there is certainly no debating that in my mind. Bottom line for me: I do enjoy both experiences, but my system only bears a resemblence to listening to live music in only a very surface regard. If you are talking strictly about an AURAL comparison of the two.....well, why even bother! We all have at least four other senses that come into play, and I'm quite certain there are more that we're unaware of that come into play as well. We also have a heart, a soul and a brain (though any one of those three can be debatable with the individual ;-), as well as our filters of individual experiences, all of which processes all of this, much of which I really doubt we completely understand. Too many thoughtful responses to this post to keep track of, but the comparison between porn and making love someone made, illustrates the same concept I am trying to.

Now there you bring up a whole different debate Fwangfwang....DWL: Drinking While Listening! Alchohol, without any doubts whatsoever, impairs all your senses, including your hearing. That single malt is stopping you from enjoying your expensive high-end system to the fullest possible degree! Really!! You PAID all that money for that remarkable system so you really should be reaping all the benefits...every bit of lifelike realism that it has to offer. So just box up your collection of single malts, and if you have a wine collection you may as well just throw that in too cause those fine red wines are REAL BAD on your hearing...any good port by the way?! Port is the worst..you may as well just stand in a cold shower and tear up all that cash you spent on those fine components if you're DWL! So just carefully bubble wrap all those bottles and float them in a nice bed of styro peanuts in a big-ass box (use a crate if you have more than 20) and ship all that nasty hearing-impairing liquor to me via Fedex...I know just what to do with it, and you'll thank me once you hear the difference listening sober can make!!! Hang onto those Cubans though, I don't smo....er, well, they don't do anything to impair your hearing so they're OK! But get those bottles of fine wines and liquors out of your house and let me take care of them for you! I know you'd do the same if you saw a fellow Audiophile abusing his hearing that way! Any of you other folks doing the DWL thing, I'd be happy to help in any way I can. The worst offenders are those really expensive red wines, 20+ year-old ports and fine single-malts...just write me off the list and I'll send you my address and you can ship them off to me for 'recycling'! No need for thanks...happy to do my part!

I've had the some of the WORST experiences at big-venu/popular concerts (about 1/4 of the concerts I attended in the past year). Most of it has to do with a combination of very poor amplification, and the behavior of the crowds (loud and obnoxious). I've recently vowed NEVER to attend anything resembling an Arena concert! The main thing that keeps me going to live music is that I've had profoundly moving experiences at so many other concerts, that I've never been able to, nor had the urge to try to replicate by other means (per my earlier response to this post). It seems like the more intimate the setting, the less 'overblown' the amplification (accoustic have been some of the best concerts for me), the better the concert experience. Unfortunately it is pretty rare that someone like Dave Matthews plays to a small crowd in little theatre (I like some of Dave's music, but one of his Arena-sized outdoor concerts last year had me actually get up and leave quite early...it was HORRIBLE...again, acoustics/amplification & crowd). I wish I'd got to see some of the acoustic tour he did with Tim Reynolds (great Guitar player) which I believe were shows at smaller venues. That live CD with the two of them is wonderful if you like his music. Fortunately there is really not much popular stuff I like. Tori Amos is as main stream as it gets for me and I'd go ALMOST anywhere to hear her thrash those keyboards. But when she changed venues from the Paramount Theatre (excellent local venue for well-produced concerts) to our local sports arena that is otherwise used for basketball, hockey and the like, I drew the line there. I'd rather listen on a Walkman!!! I've been to one concert (which was one too many) in that concrete acoustic-nightmare, and the only time I'll ever go back there is either to watch a sporting event or if hell freezes over. Just like the components in a system, those elements that make the difference in whether a concert is a wonderful or horrible experience for you are all about synergy. It's just that the synergy of a live-concert is only partially predictable and repeatable, while much of the rest of it changes as quickly and unpredictably as a persons mood. The synergy of a stereo system is much more predictable and repeatable IMO.....not much is left to chance. It's indeed unfortunate that as most performers get popular, they seem to find the need to play the larger venues...or probably their promoters and record label$ feel the need! There are a few true artists who have made it in the big time, who seem to refuse to play larger venues. Tom Waits local concert here last year at the Moore Theatre (great local music venue) sold out faster than any concert in the history of Ticketron (I remember that little news blurb having missed getting my tickets). Waits could have easily filled up the local Thunderdome with the number of fans he could draw, but he consistently chooses to play smaller venues with good acoustics. He rarely plays a concert at all these days (I think it was ten years since he'd been to Seattle). I wish there were more "popular" performers that maintained that kind of integrity when they got famous. Easy to say from way down here on this little soapbox! Then again, there were oh so many young people (Nope, I ain't quite that anymore), having what appeared to be the time of their lives at those raucous concerts that sent me screaming out the door well before the end of the shows. Oh well, to each their own!